Hi Martin,
In accordance with Klaus (MD) he suggested it would be best to consult you about my recent G3-Blues (a nice gesture for all of us before posting a review/my findings on the MD-website).
Briefly, from a socalled 'far-away-friend' I heard about MD and he told me about his G3-Rock version. Indeed, a nice and affordable package to be purchased at MD. So I proposed to contact him after the construction in order to compare (soundwise) my G3-Blues I had purchased a few months ago with his G3-Rock (because I prefer a more clean sound, that's why).
After construction, first I checked and recheckedthe whole system. No smoke or explosions . But I heard just an increasing hum when approaching with the multimeters' pins.
Upon measuring my amp, I noticed most of the values were within a loose 10%. Everything seemed to be quite normal (within these limits), but on 'V2-6' position I noticed a somewhat different value 124 Volts (in stead of the given 166 Volts). However, measuring a bit further became more weird (in my humble opinion). At the last two measuring points [18 & 19] these both voltages seemed to be around 'zero' (I checked all components over and over again). Weird it is 🤔😰. Note that the measurements of my friends' G3-Rock were all in a tight 1-2 %.
Soundwise, I also compared my Blues with the Rock-version. It was strange to discover that my G3 sounded much louder (even at extremely low 'seven 'o clock position'; almost 'zero'). Also, the influence of the Tone-dept was more pronounced in my Blues-version. In other words, dialing up the [Bass-]-EQ on the Rock hardly gave any difference in the low end. But my Blues-version already had more low end in itself (!). We 'exchanged' cabinets by crossing our both speaker connections 🤗; with more or less the same results (in terms of differences in sound and volume). By the way, the Gain-potmeter on my Blues hasn't the same 'dramatic' influence as on the Rock-version (but that seems not very surprising to me).
Until now, everything sounds right (at least, as far as I can tell) although the mentioned measurements indicate a different story. Do I have a problem here or is it a common finding?
Hope to hear from you, because this self-constructed little amp seems very nice to me .
Thanks and musical greetings,
Bram Backx
Oegstgeest - NL
Note: At first No Sound was detected. The first V-I Tube didn't glow. But I checked all the leads and resoldered some of them. With the expected good results. The tube seemed to be okay, but there was a poor soldered lead (although I developed these skills almost 25 years ago, I cpuld just blame myself for it). Nevertheless, a good learning moment for me...